1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to semiconductor devices and to a method of manufacturing the same, and more particularly, to transistors and to a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
MOS field effect transistors (hereinafter, referred to as MOS transistors) are widely used in semiconductor devices. High speed devices such as static random access memories and dynamic random access memories (DRAM) generally include MOS transistors. In order to improve the speed of such devices, it is desirable to increase the drive current passing through the channel of the MOS transistors in the devices.
The amount of drive current that can pass through the channel of a MOS transistor is proportional to the channel width and inversely proportional to the channel length. In general, when the size of the cells in a semiconductor memory is reduced, the size of the MOS transistor inside the cell is reduced. When the size of the transistor is reduced, the channel length of the MOS transistor is also reduced. This reduction can help improve the drive current. However, a reduction of the channel length can also have negative effects such as a hot carrier effect. In order to avoid such negative effects, it is desirable to improve the drive current capability of MOS transistors by an increase in the channel width.
FIG. 1 is a sectional view illustrating a conventional MOS transistor taken along the direction of channel width. FIG. 1 shows a typical MOS transistor having a flat-shaped active region 100. If the channel width W is extended with a flat-shape, the drive current of the MOS transistor can be improved. However, the amount of space used by the MOS transistor is increased. Such an increase is not helpful with respect to the high-integration of the semiconductor device. It is noted that the reference numeral “102”, refers to the gate electrode of the device.
A MOS transistor having a trench in an active region, and a method of fabricating the same are disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003-0085434. According to the U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003-0085434, an isolation layer defining an active region is disposed inside a semiconductor substrate. The active region has at least one trench displaced across a gate electrode. Such a MOS transistor has an effective channel width that extends as long as the length of both sidewalls of the trench. However, when manufacturing a MOS transistor by the method disclosed in the U.S. Patent Publication No. 2003-0085434, an additional photolithography process is necessary to form the trench. Thus, the processes become more complicated. Further, limitations in pattern resolution of the photolithography process makes it more difficult to achieve high integration.